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He didn’t hide under the bed with me.
I wail, tears rising violently to my eyes, breeching my face like a downfall of hopelessness, washing away all his peace and mine. The small slither we were allowed before the world ripped it from us - again. Cradling my head, my palms to my ears, I shake violently. Tears, saliva, my soul - they spill from me as I wait helplessly. . . We are helpless again. I picture Anubis in my head, almost feel him around me, watching me.
I inhale sharply, but my fitful sobs make it hard to draw air in along with something else. . . the air is thicker.
Tastes funny.
Then there is silence.
I try to draw air in again, hearing my own breath like a drone between my ears. Do I lower my hands? A tiny bit of adrenaline drops, allowing me to feel. Consider. I pry my fingers from my face, open my eyes, and scoot back further under the bed. The air is thick with smoke or. . . gas. A kind of fog.
Blinking through it, the thick clouds float into my eyes, making them sting. Panic sets in as reality soars through the gaps my adrenaline has left in my consciousness.
Bronson.
The boys.
Kelly.
Cassidy.
I know what I have to do. I have to crawl out.Crawl,I scream in my head. My limbs feel useless and heavy in my shock, but I have to find them; I could save them.
My fingers find the hem of the oversized shirt I am wearing, reminding myself that I am naked underneath. It doesn’t matter. Heaving in and out courage, I claw myself from under the bed. Staying on my stomach, I move over glass and pieces of debris - brick and plasterboard, I think.
Crawling through the bedroom, I can decipher footsteps and the static from two-way transceivers, leading me to believe they are from the Butcher guards. I hope.God, I hope.
The fog seems to rise around me as I move across broken rubble and out into the hallway. I peer in both directions, seeing nothing but a dense grey abyss.
Shattered glass from the blown windows shreds my flesh as I crawl along the floorboards, my elbows and knees sliding around in my blood. I hear two gunshots sound somewhere below me.
I freeze.
My heart hammers, threatening to burst out. And while a part of me screams to stay put, to get back under the goddamn bed, a louder part orders me to make sure no one needs me. I could save someone. I could save him.
I need to save him this time!
“I have her.” I hear the echoed voice of a speaker. The fog illuminates around me, and I’m hauled up into a man’s arms. “It’s okay, Miss Adel. Stay calm.”
My hands fumble around a gas mask as he pulls one over my face. I breathe into it. Deep breaths that allow my focus to steal some moments away from the hell of my mind. Of my frantic pulse. Blood rushes to my ears as I let him carry me through the house, trusting he is a Butcher guard and not someone I should fight off.
Black figures fly past me.
Two more gunshots.
The man carrying me starts to jog, so I clutch at him, sobbing and vibrating in his arms. Suddenly, I’m passed to someone else, and then I can see clearly in this room before I’m lowered to the ground and the door I came through shuts. But my legs don’t hold me, so I’m guided further to the floor, until I no longer need to find the strength to stand.
I push my mask up just as I’m taken into small but strong arms. Her hands are in my hair and she’s kissing my cheeks, her blonde hair curtaining us. I realise in this moment that I’m bawling hysterically. Another set of arms find me, and I glance across to see wisps of golden blonde hair. Both Cassidy and I open our arms to take Kelly in between us; we all cry and huddle together.
“It’s going to be okay,” a man says from beside us and his voice is so loud, I wince. The room is in a state of eerie silence. My ears no longer ring with the remnants of gunfire. Instantly, I loosen my hold on the two girls, raise my head, and investigate the quiet space. We are in a windowless suite, furnished much like a hotel room might be, with a modern kitchen and a sunken living room. Three men guard the door, kitted up in full length black gear and holding semi-automatic rifles. Two open doors appear to lead to bedrooms.
A shiver rushes along my spine as I realise that I’m sitting on the floor of some kind of bunker.
A man with burns etched into his face drops to his haunches beside me and holds a black vest out. I recognise him from when I was younger. “Put this on.” Carter says. “You’re going to be fine.”
But I’m not worried about myself. Frantically, I search the room again, the door, the kitchen, the bedrooms, desperately hoping I find them sitting in a corner conversing, planning, allowing the guards to secure the property while they are safe with us. . .
The boys aren’t in here.
